


Counting Scars

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Headspace, M/M, Scars, i have no idea how else to tag this it's just, vaguely Weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 07:56:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6321298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel is piecing Dean back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Scars

**Author's Note:**

> thank you [cecilia](http://femmechester.tumblr.com/) for betaing this and tempering the weirdness

Castiel is piecing Dean back together.

He is pulling Dean’s soul from the dust and grime of Hell, he is brushing the lingering traces of it away with the force of his grace. He is rebuilding a shell to contain it, a vessel for that perfect light.

He is rebuilding Dean whole and complete, he is removing the wear and tear he’s accumulated during his precious few years of life. He is bringing Dean back perfect.

There will be a mark from his claim, but that can’t be helped.

“You should leave the scars, Castiel,” Uriel says. “Some humans say they tell stories.”

Castiel scoffs. Even Dean, who he knows is part of the Story, is not made of the heavens. The patterns his freckles make across his skin are beautiful, but they are not constellations.

No, Dean is a thing of the earth, like all humans. The marks on their flesh are like canyons, like mountains, like fissures. They are things carved into a body by time, things built up by trauma.

If they are telling a story, Castiel thinks, it is not a story anyone wants to hear.

—

Dean stabs him.

It is of no consequence. Castiel’s grace thrums beneath his borrowed skin, singing the song of creation. He can feel the blood stop moments after it starts, the perpetual hum of which he is composed already encouraging the cells to regenerate, commanding the flesh to knit itself back together. He doesn’t even need to think about it.

He thinks only of Dean, looks at him through his own eyes and the eyes of his vessel alike. There is dirt under Dean’s fingernails and scrapes on his knuckles from clawing his way from his own grave. There are cuts along his arms from crawling on broken glass. There is dried blood in his ears from Castiel’s mistake.

There is Castiel’s brand on his shoulder, that part of Dean that glows not with the light of his own soul but with that of Castiel’s grace. It resonates with him; it calls to him. He wants to reach out and touch it. Heal the wounds Dean has accumulated in the hours since he was raised from the dead.

Instead, Castiel reaches for the knife in his chest.

—

Humans are their own little worlds, and if their scars are the features of their landscapes, their souls are molten cores churning beneath the surfaces.

He can see it when he looks at them, the way their souls shift and shimmer, the way they change along with their emotions. He watches with fascination as strangers’ souls press hot against the inside of their skin, flow in slow currents, shrink away into their cores.

Dean, though, wears his soul like the earth wears its weather. He supposes this is why he finds a kindred spirit in Dean, this man whose emotions swell and expand as though they are trying to burst forth from his body, whose soul is so full that the thin atmosphere of his skin can scarcely contain it.

Dean’s soul is ever restless. His joy shimmers like sun on snowcapped mountains, like the aurora borealis, but his self loathing is a storm perpetually on the horizon. His anger is a hurricane that could raze cities, but his forgiveness leaves a calm sea in its wake. 

Dean is full of love and loathing the likes of which Castiel has never seen, and he has seen much. He can scarcely tear his eyes away.

Dean looks up from his laptop. “Dude,” he says. “Knock it off with the staring.”

This is another thing Castiel can see in Dean: he builds up walls inside himself that are so large they can be seen from space.

“My apologies,” Castiel says, and makes only his vessel turn away.

—

“I have doubts,” Castiel says.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see his own light flicker.

—

“I can’t do it, Cas,” Dean says. “I’m not—I’m not strong enough.”

Dean’s despair settles over him like the start of an ice age, like the nuclear winter of which humans are so afraid.

When Castiel looks at him, he can feel himself growing cold.

—

Dean lays a hand on Castiel’s shoulder.

He preens under the attention, he feels his grace respond, pull itself to the surface. Even through three layers of clothing, Dean’s touch feels like the sun kissing his skin.

—

Castiel is collecting scars. He is gathering wounds he can’t heal. He is going from Story to story.

Dean reaches for him anyway, smiling at Castiel as though he still holds stars beneath his skin. Before he can stop himself, Castiel pulls away.

Just like that, Dean’s smile disappears. He says, “You don’t want this.” It isn’t a question.

“I—” Castiel starts, and then realizes he doesn’t know how to explain.

Dean breathes out through his mouth in a huff; an impatient, exasperated sound.

Castiel can’t see the storm of it in Dean’s soul any more, but it’s written on his face. “You’re angry,” Castiel says, with certainty.

“What?” Dean says, frowning. His hand twitches where it hangs uncertainly in the space between them. “No. I’m not—I’m not angry, Cas. I just want to understand and I don’t.”

Castiel looks down at his hands, at the callouses forming on his fingers, at the dirt under his nails. He’s silent long enough that Dean drops his hand to his side.

“I used to be perfect and now I’m not,” Castiel says, when he finally speaks. It sounds foolish, he thinks, simplified like that and said out loud. He cringes at his own inadequate explanation. He tries again. “I have scars I can’t heal and grime I can’t clean,” he adds. “Every mistake I make is here to stay.”

He waits for Dean to laugh. Dean is good at that, at small, mean barks of laughter that contain no humor. Cas has seen them before, those quick and sharp little lightning strikes, and he is prepared for one to be directed at him.

Instead, Dean sighs. He drags a hand over his face and he looks at the floor.

And then he starts unbuttoning his shirt.

Cas frowns. He says, “What are you doing?”

Dean ignores him. He finishes undoing the buttons of his flannel and then slips out of it, lets it pool on the floor around his feet. He pulls his undershirt over his head by the collar and drops it to the ground. He unties his boots, kicks them off, peels off his socks. He undoes his belt and then the button and zipper on his jeans and slides them down and steps out of them, to the side, standing next to the heap of his clothing in nothing but his boxers.

Dean twists his leg. He points to a part where a chunk of skin is missing. He says, “Ghost got the drop on me a couple years back, but at least he only took part of my leg instead of taking his sister.” He holds out his right arm, motions to a patch of skin darker than the rest on his wrist. He says, “Contact burn. Pan wasn’t quite as cool as I was expecting it to be. But it was the first full meal Sam ate after he sent Gadreel packing.” He turns his back to Castiel and reaches over his shoulder to gesture at several raised lines trailing across his shoulder blade. He says, “Werewolf. It got to three people before we put it down. Who knows how many more it would’ve killed or turned.”

He turns back around to face Castiel, spreads his arms wide. He says, “This is me. These are part of me now. They’re never going to heal.”

He says, “I wish I still had your handprint.”

There is something building in Castiel, something pushing behind his eyes like his grace too large for his body, something caught in his throat.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Dean asks, not unkindly. “Or do I need to spell it out?”

Castiel looks at Dean, at all of him. He has never been able to look away. There are scars on his skin that speak of all the lives he has saved, of all the good he has done. There is dirt under his fingernails, but his freckles are starting to look like constellations after all.

Castiel says, “You don’t care about my scars.”

“Close,” Dean says. “I care about you. Scars and all.”

“Oh,” Castiel says, eyes fixed on the line of freckles across Dean’s hipbone that remind him of Orion’s belt.

“Do you want to touch me or not?” Dean says. It doesn't sound accusatory, only tired. When Castiel looks up, there it is, behind his eyes, that familiar flicker: hope and doubt. Want and fear. Love and loathing in equal measure.

Castiel takes a deep breath. He reaches out and places a tentative hand on Dean's left shoulder. His skin is warm, even here in the bunker where no sun ever shines.

Dean reaches back.

Castiel doesn’t pull away.


End file.
